DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I worked briefly with a girl many years younger than me, and we got on well and formed a group of us who went on occasional brunches. I was the only male. We get on as a group.
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One night she asked me ‘why have we never f--ked’ and I responded ‘dunno’ hugged her and did nothing. I met her for a drink a few weeks later and she said she was offended I had never made a move when we worked together.
She has been with someone for a year or so and tells our little group how happy she is with him.
Was I missing signs?
No Signal
DEAR NO SIGNAL: I dunno, my dude, she’s the one saying that she’s upset that you never f--ked and you never even tried to f--k her, so you tell me.
But ok, I’m gonna be fair here to the both of you: people in general are very bad at giving and picking up on signals, and honestly on a societal level, it’s kind of a self-inflicted injury.
This is one of those times when everyone involved has incentivized a system that is dissatisfying to everyone. Men have already socialized themselves to conflate emotional intimacy with romantic intimacy, and are notorious for mistaking niceness and professional politeness for sexual interest. Just about every woman out there has experienced saying “hey, how’s it going” to a man and his hearing it as “take me now in a manly fashion, you stallion, you”.
Of course, there’re also the men who are so risk-avoidant or so convinced of their own lack of desirability – possibly even because of mistaking politeness for interest and getting shot down over it – that they can’t believe anyone would want to f--k them. As a result, they miss or discount every sign short of “hop in his lap and start to wiggle”… and sometimes not even then.
Women, on the other hand, have been socially punished for being overt in expressing sexual interest in men, especially in public… and occasionally even for when other people think that they’re expressing too much interest, whether they are or not.
And to make matters worse, there are a lot of men out there who get upset to the point of violence when women flout social norms regarding gender roles – up to and including expressing sexual desire to someone, openly.
Part of the reason why so much of signaling romantic or sexual interest seems like secret code or trying to read meaning into the subtleties of the turn of a wrist or a flick of the hair is because women who are more obvious in showing interest end up paying for it. Men frequently assume a much greater level of interest than she’s actually expressing, or they assume it’s a trap or a trick. With a lifetime of dealing with other people constantly assuming interest that isn’t there, women are incentivized to try to avoid anything that might be picked up and read as a sign and to be as covert as possible in hopes that the right person will pick up on it.
And this is before we get into the issue regarding societal beliefs about female sexuality in general; “slut” and “whore” are still tossed around as insults for a reason, after all. Even in the far flung future of 2024 when Conner MacLeod should be turning off the ozone shield and fighting General Katana, women who f--k “too much” or in the “wrong” way are still seen as damaged or broken or otherwise flawed. Much as men are still prized for the amount of sex they have, women are still graded on the amount of sex they don’t have.
S--t, just look at the number of folks who assume that a woman with large breasts who’s just trying to wear a shirt that fits is somehow teasing or taunting men or otherwise Being Wrong, Sexually.
So yeah, we’ve basically managed to create a system where everyone’s speaking different languages and wondering why nobody is understanding them as they’re all trying to get a leg over.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that you shouldn’t feel too bad about missing even some glaringly obvious signals. Not realizing you were being asked back to someone’s place for a hot cup of “f--k my brains out” until years after the fact is one of the most time-honored traditions men have – one that crosses nations, cultures and sexual orientation.
But hopefully next time, you’ll be a little more alert when your hot co-worker is spending a lot more time in your personal space than is strictly necessary.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com